Acts 26:18 – “..to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”
The following is the testimony of Elizabeth Punnoor, of London, England of how Almighty God worked in her life by His grace to bring her ‘from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that [she]..receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith’ in Lord Yeshua the Messiah, Son of the living God.
Elizabeth, roughly how long have you been saved?
I was baptised in 2005 but I believe it was around 1999-2000that God by His Spirit began a work in me.
In your own words, what does “saved” mean and where in the Scripture do you derive your understanding?
Saved means to be brought to life and light, out of sin and the world by being joined to Jesus in relationship with God. It is to come to the light of eternal life in Lord Jesus.
One Scripture from where my understanding is derived is from Paul’s Damascus Road conversion account in Acts 9:1-19 (see reference to this below). Although I believe we are saved by grace through faith – we are not saved through baptism – it was the fact that Paul himself needed to be baptised which spoke to me of my own need as a Gentile needing to know God. Although Paul was of the tribe of Benjamin, a descendant of Abraham and a Rabbi when he met Jesus the Messiah, since even he had to believe and accept Jesus is the Lord, how much more we Gentiles need to do the same!
Elizabeth’s background
Can you share with us about your family background?
I was born in Kerala, India into a Protestant Christian family and raised in this religious tradition. Although my parents were Protestant, in my father’s distant ancestry were those who were Brahmins following Hinduism and worshipping idols. They were high priests in the Hindu temples. Somewhere along the line this changed and both my father and mother were raised in the Protestant religion, my mother being of the Orthodox tradition.
Although the church was too far from us to go often, my siblings and I attended Sunday School every Sunday as this was located much nearer to our home. The actual church was in someone’s house who lived very far away but a prayer meeting was held more locally. We lived in an area heavily populated by Hindus and were one of only twelve families who were Protestants belonging to our particular church. We would gather for Sunday School in one of the houses and then every Sunday evening there would be a family prayer fellowship, with the local families taking it in turns for their homes to be used. My sister and I used to read the bible every evening but we didn’t pray. My father worked far away and was only able to come home at the weekends – so we did not have a prayer life as a family. My mother didn’t really take in much about true Christianity – whenever she had any trouble she would give an offering to “the saints” and all that kind of stuff. I would say, she had a knowledge of the existence of God but no faith in Him in her heart. This was the way my siblings and I were raised. I have one sister and one brother and I am the eldest.
Having been raised as you were, clearly you knew there was a God. Can you remember when you first heard the Gospel?
Although I did have a knowledge of God from a young age and must have first heard the Gospel through Sunday School and Bible reading, this did not register in me as ‘the Gospel’ I know it to be today.
When did you become conscious of the Gospel of Lord Yeshua, that Messiah died for your sins, personally?
This was around 1994 while working in Dubai as shared below. It was through the Holy Spirit, the Lord Yeshua and the word of God, not by any individual. God created in me a desire to read the Bible, leading me into regular times of daily prayer through which eventually resulted in my deliverance from the dead religion I had had up to this time to true faith in Yeshua.
Elizabeth’s Journey to Faith
What was your journey to saving faith from then on? How did God work in your life to bring you from head knowledge to the light of the saving knowledge and salvation of Lord Yeshua the Messiah?
I had left my family home in India in 1991 to stay with an Uncle in the North-West region of India to begin work. My Uncle’s family were also nominal Protestants, but had no true knowledge of God. There was a lot of drinking (alcohol), they would call themselves “Christians” but there was no relating to God – no seeking God in prayer, no seeking God at all in fact. I remained there for about 18 months and in 1993 I left India to find work in Dubai.
In 1994 I was working in Dubai as a private nanny. I was not able to attend church at all there, I only had the Bible. Although I was not regularly praying, I did read a chapter of the Bible every day yet I had no real understanding of what I was reading. The family I worked for used to travel to Europe and it was during these times of accompanying them that, while flicking through channels I discovered Christian TV programmes which I began watching during my break times at work. I also gradually began to read books by Christian authors, such as John Bunyan. I believe the Holy Spirit was working in me and it was the Lord Himself who stirred my heart to seek Him in prayer, leading me to establishing prayer in my daily life. As I continued reading the Bible from then on, my understanding began to increase and I came to see that I needed to be born-again, that I needed salvation. It was at this time, I would say, that I truly became conscious of the Gospel, that Messiah Yeshua died for my sins personally and rose from the dead.
In 1997 I got married by the usual arranged marriage custom in my culture to a man also working in Dubai. Previous experiences had given me an aversion for those who drank and in particular for alcoholics. In India, whenever I would see any alcoholic, I would cross to the other side of the street to avoid them! Sadly, after I got married, I discovered that my husband was an alcoholic! Needless to say, this caused many difficulties for me personally and in the marriage. It was particularly devastating because my own father never drank or smoked but both my father-in-law and husband smoked and drank heavily. It was all too much for me with times of deep struggles together with seriously stressful difficulties at work and often little to no peace at home. I believe it was the Lord who had mercy upon me and led me to where I could find out more about who He truly is, about His peace and about His salvation. It is amazing to me to know that even before I began actively seeking Him, the Lord was seeking me to draw me to Himself! Perhaps it was because the Lord saw where I was heading to in all my despair. The drinking was so much that no matter how hard we worked, there would be not enough left for living costs which meant we often had to borrow money.
At this time, after getting married, I was not really seeking the Lord. I had no real peace at all. I was getting to that place where the burden of my life circumstances were too great and I had had enough. There were many times I thought to myself that I just wanted to die – but I didn’t want to commit suicide as I didn’t want to be lost. My thoughts were that I just had enough of all the struggles with troubles, difficulties, conflicts, pain and so wanted death but not by suicide. I believe that all this work together to bring me all the way to the Lord – to the saving faith in Lord Yeshua.
I began reading my bible again and found myself awaking in the early hours to pray, seeking the Lord, quite often around 3am. Gradually, I began to realise more deeply that I personally needed to be saved. The more I prayed and read the Bible, the more my own sin was being made apparent to me – the word of God was showing me the sins in my own heart. The word of God is like looking in a mirror to check your appearance – it will show you all that is amiss which you don’t know until you look in the mirror! The Lord was convicting me of sin and helped me to come to the understanding that He commands everyone to repent and to ask Him for forgiveness. This was a very gradual process, perhaps over a period of five years. That journey led me to repentance and faith in the Lord Yeshua, the Son of God who died for my sins and rose from the dead. I had no church fellowship through this time, it was the Lord Himself who led me all the way. In the bedroom (which I shared with two other female employees of the family I worked for) by myself, within my heart, I prayed to God, confessing my sin and asking the Lord Jesus to forgive me and give me His salvation. At this time, I did not live with my husband as he worked in a hotel elsewhere in Dubai while I continued my nannying work. The arrangement we had is that I would go to be with him in his living quarters at weekends when I had time off. This was when and how I came to saving faith in Lord Jesus.
After this time, on a visit home to India, I found that my father had started to attend a church congregation and had become a Spirit-born believer in Jesus and it was then I began attending with him. I was challenged by the woman who led that congregation about why I had not been baptised but at that time, it was just not in my heart to do this.
When did the assurance of salvation come? When did you know you were saved? Can you describe how that felt?
This was in 2005 when I was saved and baptized. For me, that assurance came with a strong sense that I now had Someone – God – with me and for me, together with a deep peace, which truly surpassed understanding. My problems did not stop but from the time I truly repented and trusted in Lord Yeshua for salvation I began to experience that peace. I knew deep within I could turn to God in the midst of the floods of problems in my life. I just knew deep within that I was saved and that the peace I experienced was truly from God.
In your own words what is repentance and its connection with salvation?
Repentance is coming to the recognition that we have a fallen nature and we all fall short of the glory of God. Like in the account of “the Prodigal Son” [Ed. see Luke 15:11-32] we have gone far from our Father and we need to turn back to Him. I used to share this with some of my unbelieving friends and would say this to them: ‘I have a son and all the family possessions – the lands and every valuable thing – belongs to him. If I had wealth enough, out of my wealth I would give to anyone who asked me for something, according to their need, but, those things which are very precious I would keep for my son alone. I would never give those things to anyone else but him.’ God is the Creator of all things and of every single person and, as God, it is possible for Him to give everyone everything. He gives us all things we have need of for our earthly lives: air, rain, sunshine, food, water – everything. However if you are counted as God’s child through Jesus and He becomes your Heavenly Father, then you will inherit those most precious things of all things – eternal life in the kingdom of Heaven, through Jesus His Son. Without repentance from sin we can never come to our heavenly Father, who is Holy (we cannot therefore inherit salvation).
We repent when we come to God, through the cross of Lord Jesus Christ – His sinless shed blood and atoning death – and His resurrection and then God gives to us salvation which is in Jesus His Son. At that Cross, we lay down everything, our sins, our own way and we accept what Jesus has done for us on the Cross. He has done it all, everything when He died on the Cross and rose from the dead and from that point of repentance at the cross and faith in Jesus, we become children of God and we walk with Jesus as He is our salvation. That walk is continuing repentance – it is not a one-time thing, but a continuing lived out faith, coming often to be cleansed from sins we still commit (because we have not attained sinless perfection) through the provision of the sinless shed blood of Jesus Christ. As mentioned earlier – the Bible is like a mirror, the Holy Spirit will show us sins we may not even be conscious off as we read the word of God, and we will need to repent, turning from them to God’s way.
From then to now
Since then, can you share a little bit about how the Lord Yeshua has worked in your life?
From the point of coming to faith in the Lord Jesus, I was still initially without a church fellowship and only came with my employers in Dubai to Europe about once a year. Whenever I came, I would tune into the Christian TV channels whenever I could get the chance.
My life continued as a nanny but I began to feel I wanted to leave Dubai and return to India with my son who I had in 1999. There were some serious problems with work which meant I could not stay any longer and my husband’s drinking was a huge problem. In my heart I no longer wanted to remain in Dubai and so returned to India in 2005, shortly after coming to saving faith in Lord Jesus, but my husband remained working in Dubai.
It was at this time I became baptised. As mentioned above, my father at this time had repented and become a Spirit-born believer in Lord Jesus Christ, baptised and no longer following dead religion. It was here I first began to experience Christian fellowship, attending the church congregation with my father. Later on in life, my mother also repented and was saved out of dead religion through a true faith in Lord Jesus Christ.
It was the account of the Apostle Paul’s conversion on the Damascus Road, and in particular that fact that he with all his credentials as one of God’s covenant people needed to be baptised which struck me deepest [Ed. for the account of the conversion of Saul (Paul) see Acts 9:1-19, noting verse 18 in particular. As to Paul’s impeccable Jewish credentials and their value before God see Philippians 3:4-11]. My thoughts were that if Paul, one of God’s Covenant People Israel needed to be baptised how much then did I – a Gentile – also need to be baptised. This struck me so powerfully that I was baptised soon after. Before I was saved, in my ignorance I had thought nothing about anti-Semitism because in my unregenerate mind I thought their disobedience to God chronicled in the Old Testament meant they deserved the treatment they have suffered. However, after Lord Yeshua saved me and opened my heart to believe, God showed me through His word that He loves and still has a purpose for His Covenant People Israel and how that we who are Gentiles are grafted into their Hope, Messiah Yeshua, by God’s grace through faith. The Church has not replaced Israel, but rather believing Gentiles through the Church are grafted into the New Covenant God made with His people Israel through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ [Ed. see e.g. Jeremiah 31:31-37; Matthew 26:26-28; Luke 22:14-20; Hebrews 8]. God changed my heart for His people by His Spirit before I came to sit under any teachings concerning Jewish people and gave me His love for them.
By the time of my baptism my husband had tired of Dubai and also returned to India. I did not let my husband’s family know of my baptism – they were of the Orthodox religion, but nominal in whatever they believed and were against ‘born-again Christians’. Later, some in the family however did come to faith in Lord Jesus and became also Spirit-born believers. When I had left Dubai I had told my husband of my intention to be baptised and he had not been too happy about that. This did not change when I was actually baptised.
In time, my thoughts were turned to consider moving to England for work. An Aunt, who had a friend living in London, England, recommended I try to obtain a visa and work permit to see if I would like to work in the UK. I had previously visited the UK when my previous employers travelled to Europe so it was not entirely new to me. Difficulties in my life arising mainly from my husband’s alcoholism were still continuing, at times becoming worse still, and led me to seek the Lord earnestly in prayer often for His help to sustain me. I followed my Aunt’s recommendation and at the end of 2005 came to the UK and ended up finding work in Manchester. Prior to this, I found it really hard to know how to find the right church as I didn’t know much about the spiritual climate in the UK. When I came to Manchester, I used my Sundays off to visit churches looking for Christian fellowship – even ending up inadvertently one day in a Mormon church. I had never heard of Mormons in my life and I thought because they had a “Pastor” that meant they were a Christian fellowship. I took their number and later mentioned the encounter to my employers, who were not believers. They did however tell me about a Christian radio station which I later called and found out about a Christian church fellowship not far from me. This turned out to be a sound Christian church with solid bible teaching and it was during my time there that the basic foundation of my faith and Christian discipleship was more firmly laid within me.
In 2011/12 my employers moved to Kent, South-East England. I had a bit of a search for a Christian congregation but though I did find a believing church fellowship, I did not feel comfortable there. It was more about “miracles, signs and wonders” rather than the solid teaching I had been used to and was not right for me. Around this time, my employers no longer required a live-in housekeeper and I ended up relocating to London. On hearing I was moving to London, the Pastor of my previous church in Manchester (and many the believers) strongly recommended my present church because of the teaching of the Senior Elder was widely known to be sound. In fact, many said to me not to look elsewhere. [Ed. as at April 2023 the Senior Elder is Tony Pearce (Light for the Last Days).
Meanwhile back in India my husband had become very ill. When he left Dubai in 2011 he was heavily drinking and back in India he drank all the more, day and night. By 2012 he was seriously ill as the alcoholism had affected his liver. The Lord however had great mercy upon him and by the grace of God in 2017 he repented of his sin, put his trust in Lord Jesus Christ and became a Spirit-born believer. The Lord mercifully also delivered him from alcoholism and smoking and although his health suffers from the years of abuse, the Lord continues to sustain him. By God’s grace, our son also became a believer in Lord Jesus and continues to walk in the truth. Both my husband and son were baptised together on the same day in 2017.
Can you tell me about the ministry you serve in, what it is and how you came to know the Lord was calling you into this ministry?
I can remember a dream I had when I was 13 years old where the Lord really impressed upon me to seek Him with all my heart and soul, to love Him and to not do evil but to overcome evil with good. These two Scriptures were given to me in this dream [Ed. see e.g. Mark 12:30 and Romans 12:21]. I believe this in some way underpins my ministry which is a hidden one of prayer. In particular prayer for persecuted Christians and prayer for the salvation of Jewish people.
What is your heart’s desire for this ministry?
To be faithful in prayer for the persecuted believers and prayer for Israel, following the will and leading of the Holy Spirit. This was laid on my heart after my baptism. I did not know any Jewish people but the Lord put it in my heart firmly that I am to pray for them. A few years ago I began to attend a messianic congregation when seeking a Saturday fellowship as some Sundays were often difficult to have free because of work. The Lord has also used this Messianic fellowship, ((recommended by the Senior Elder and with some links to my church congregation) to help me learn a little more of our Jewish faith. One example of this is learning to see the Hebrew Scriptures through the Messiah, in other words seeing Jesus – Yeshua – in the Old Testament Scriptures. Without Jesus, I as a Gentile cannot truly understand the Hebrew Scriptures, especially the Torah [Ed. ‘The Torah’ is the first five books of The Bible]. Both fellowships have a strong connection to Jewish people and to serving the, as well as Gentile peoples and I am help through both of these as I pray.
Last words
Can you share one Scripture passage through which the Holy Spirit has really encouraged, strengthened or instructed you in your walk of faith in Lord Yeshua?
I would like to choose 1 Corinthians 3:16-17: ‘Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.’
This Scripture reminds me that since I am the temple of the Lord, I belong to Lord Jesus and therefore God will protect me as His.
Finally, how can sisters in the faith of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah pray for you?
Please pray that whatever the enemy plans for me and whatever I may face, whether good or bad, that I would glorify my heavenly Father through Lord Yeshua and lift His name on high; that I would be among His labourers being about the Father’s business here on earth, glorifying His name.
To God be the glory, great things He has done!
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